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2196 Astoria Park Pool and Play Center

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2196 Astoria Park Pool and Play Center Landmarks Preservation Commission June 20, 2006, Designation List 377 LP- 2196 ASTORIA PARK POOL AND PLAY CENTER, including the bath house, wading pool, diving pool, filter house, bleachers, brick perimeter walls, piers and cast iron fencing, stairways to bath house roof-top observation decks, comfort station, and connecting pathways, 19th Street between 22nd Drive and Hoyt Avenue North, Astoria Park, Borough of Queens. Constructed 1934-36; John M. Hatton and others, Architects; Aymar Embury II, Consulting Architect; Gilmore D. Clarke and others, Landscape Architects. Landmark Site: Tax Map Block 898, Lot 1 in part, and portions of the adjacent public way, consisting of the property bounded by a line extending northerly from a point defined by the intersection of the western curbline or 19th Street and the northern curbline of Hoyt Avenue North (where it extends westerly to form the vehicular entrance to the Astoria Park parking lot), along the western curbline of 19th Street to a line extending easterly from the line of the southernmost wall of the Hellgate Bridge anchorage, continuing westerly along that line and the line of the southernmost wall of the Hellgate Bridge anchorage to the U.S. Pierhead and Bulkhead Line, then southerly along the U.S. Pierhead and Bulkhead Line to a line extending westerly from the line of the northernmost wall of the Triborough Bridge anchorage, then easterly along that line to the western concrete curb of the concrete and asphalt Astoria Park parking lot, continuing northeasterly, then southeasterly around the curvature of the concrete curb to the point of the beginning. On April 18, 2006, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation of the Astoria Play Center (LP-2196) including the upper and lower bathhouse terraces, upper terrace benches and ticket booths, stairways and flanking walls, lighting fixtures, flagpole, railings, paving, seating areas, trees, and comfort stations, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 8). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Three witnesses spoke in favor of designation, including Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, and representatives of the Historic Districts Council and the Art Deco Society. The site was previously heard on April 3, 1990, July 10, 1990, and September 11, 2990 (LP-1784). Summary The Astoria Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense new outdoor swimming pools which were opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses. All were constructed largely with funding provided by the Works Progress Administration, one of the many New Deal agencies created during the 1930s to address the effects of America’s Great Depression. Designed to accommodate a total of 49,000 users simultaneously at locations scattered across the entire city, and completed just two and a half years after the LaGuardia administration took office, the new pool complexes gained quick recognition as being among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever constructed in this country. Many architects, landscape architects, and engineers were hired to execute the pool program and the hundreds of other new construction and rehabilitation projects undertaken between 1934 and 1936 by a newly consolidated Park Department. They were guided by a senior team composed of staff members and consultants who had earlier worked for Moses at various governmental agencies, including the New York State Council of Parks and the Long Island State Park Commission. They included architect Aymar Embury II, landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Allyn R. Jennings, and civil engineers W. Earle Andrews and William H. Latham. Surviving documents also indicate that Robert Moses, himself a long-time swimming enthusiast, gave detailed attention to the designs for the new pool complexes. Opened on July 2, 1936, with a capacity of 6,200 swimmers, and designed mainly by consulting Park Department architect John Matthews Hatton, the Astoria Play Center commands a striking waterfront location in Astoria Park. The vast scale of the pool complex is complemented by that of its setting – the distant vistas westward framed by the monumental forms of the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges. Embedded into what has now become a densely wooded slope which descends to the water’s edge from 19th Street, the play center complex was designed to take full advantage of its surroundings. The entire roof of the bath house structure is used for multi-level viewing terraces. Extensive concrete bleacher sections are located on the western side of the bath house and around the diving pool. They offer far more outdoor seating than is available at the other play centers; perhaps the abundant seating is related to the fact that the final trials for the 1936 Summer Olympics were held here. Like Hatton’s later design for the 1939 bath house at Betsy Head, the Astoria Play Center structure makes extensive use of glass block; it forms the lower recessed sections of the locker room walls which are topped by the original metal louver windows. Massive piers laid up in decorative bonds demarcate the bays. Glass block also forms extensive sections of the lateral walls of the entryway: the original Art Moderne style ticket booth and signage are its other significant features. Among the Center’s more unusual design elements are the whimsical saucer- like roofs atop the upper portions of the filter house structure on the western side of the swimming pool. The areas adjacent to the pool complex include extensive pathway systems, playing areas, and a striking comfort station designed in a style similar to that of the bath house. 2 DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS History of the Astoria Park Pool Site1 The setting for the Astoria Park Pool and Play Center is the sloping, sixty-six acre Astoria Park, located on the east shore of the Hell Gate channel across from Ward’s Island in western Queens. The complex has a panoramic view of the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan framed between the towering Triborough Bridge to the south and the majestic Hell Gate Bridge to the north. Long Island City and Astoria became part of greater New York City in the consolidation of 1898. By 1907, the land now occupied by Astoria Park and its surroundings remained occupied by fading, former estates of prominent families and ship captains, who had moved away as industrial and residential developments loomed ever closer. The pace of urbanization picked up after the opening of the Queensborough Bridge in 1909,2 adding many more factories and houses. Around the turn of the century, sentiment emerged to increase public access to the East River and Hell Gate waterfront. In 1913, the City of New York acquired fifty-six acres of land along the shorefront for what was to become Astoria Park. Originally, named for Mayor William J. Gaynor, who served from 1910 to 1913, the name of the park was soon changed to Astoria Park.3 According to Parks Department Records, Astoria Park - which was originally equipped with two playgrounds, six tennis courts, three baseball diamonds, a wading pool, bandstand, and comfort station - was the first large park in New York City to provide for organized, rather than passive, recreation.4 The Hell Gate Bridge, designed by engineer Gustav Lindenthal and architect Henry Hornbostel, was constructed over the northern park of Astoria Park in 1917; its majestic towers forming the park’s northern vista. Major improvements to Astoria Park were undertaken in the 1930s under the auspices of the popular mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia and his legendary Park Commissioner, Robert Moses. These changes included the addition of 4.5 acres of parkland under the Triborough Bridge, which was finished in 1936, the same year of the opening of the Astoria Park Pool and Play Center.5 Engineered by O.H. Ammann and designed by the architect Aymar Embury II, the Triborough Bridge, along with the pool complex, added a sleek modernity to the park. The improvements of the 1930s were made largely by using funds obtained from the Works Progress Administration, one of the many public works programs created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the United States Congress during the Great Depression. Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Moses and the New Deal6 Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932 in the middle of the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash in 1929. Roosevelt promised to rebuild confidence in American capitalism and to improve the nation's standard of living by creating the New Deal economic program of unprecedented public spending on social programs and construction projects. New York City had been especially hard hit by the economic downturn,7 and its citizens, hoping for change, elected Fiorello LaGuardia to the mayoralty of New York City in 1933 under a reform-minded "fusion" ticket. He chose New York State Park Commissioner, Robert Moses, a champion of reform politics, as New York City’s new Park Commissioner. The new mayor's success in securing a lion's share of monies made available by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Moses' superb management skills and his ability to attract talented designers and engineers to his staff, resulted in 3 profound physical changes in the environment of New York City. The construction and renovation of neighborhood recreation areas, such as pools and play grounds, were some of the most ambitious and successful programs undertaken by Moses with funds largely provided by the WPA. Fiorello H. La Guardia was sworn in as the ninety-ninth mayor of the City of New York in January 1934, as an anti-Tammany Hall reform candidate. A maverick Republican and a five-term congressman from East Harlem, LaGuardia won the 1933 mayoral election on the “Fusion” ticket after losing the 1929 mayoral race on the Republican line.
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